Merkel’s exit opens door to more populism in Germany

'With the succession in Germany unclear, French President Emmanuel Macron a political bust, and the U.K. stumbling out of the EU apparently managed by the Ministry of Silly Walks, there are no commanding champions of mainstream liberal democracy in sight.'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will be leaving politics. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

The face of European politics is changing rapidly, and the departure of Angela Merkel will hasten the transformation. For 13 years, the German chancellor has been the calm and pragmatic leader of Europe’s dominant economy and political lodestone. She could always be counted on to hang firm in a crisis.

Her leadership was crucial in the European Union’s response to the global economic crisis in 2008 and the resulting devastation of indebted countries using the euro.

Throughout her tenure, Merkel has been the champion of political integration within the EU, and the values that have driven the project since the end of the Second World War.

Under the same banner, Merkel confronted the territorial ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin from the East and the blindly destructive impulses of Donald Trump from the West.

But on Monday, Merkel said that in December, she will step down as leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a post she has held for 18 years. In 2021, Merkel said, she will not seek re-election as chancellor, nor as a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag.

Her announcement, while not unexpected, has left the EU looking at a very uncertain future. With the succession in Germany unclear, French President Emmanuel Macron a political bust, and the United Kingdom stumbling out of the EU apparently managed by the Ministry of Silly Walks, there are no commanding champions of mainstream liberal democracy in sight.

In contrast, nationalism, populism and extreme politics, left and right, are on the rise.

Rank nationalists are in power in Hungary and Poland. A strange alliance of left- and right-wing populists governs Italy, insofar as governing Italy is possible.

A far-right party is in the coalition government of Austria, and another holds the balance of power in Sweden. Right-wing parties are firmly embedded in Holland, France and Germany.

Even a few months ago, these parties seemed to have limited capacity for growth, but that is no longer the case, especially in Germany.

As much as anything, it is the rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) that has brought the Merkel era to a close.

Her decision in 2015 to welcome a million refugees from the Syrian civil war divided her CDU party and Germany. While many applauded her humanitarian response, the AfD fed and grew on the feeling among many Germans, especially in the country’s east, that their society and culture were being changed out of recognition.

To the tide of Syrian refugees has been added a flow of economic migrants from across north Africa. These have also put Merkel at odds with many of the countries of the old East Bloc, who have firmly shut their doors against the newcomers.

A decade is about the maximum time anyone can manage the complexities and rapid social changes of a modern state. The results of the German general election of September 2017 showed that, despite her extraordinary talents, Merkel’s time was up.

Merkel’s centre-right CDU, and the closely linked Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria, lost nearly nine per cent support compared with the election in 2013.

That loss exactly matched the gains of the AfD, which now has seats in the Bundestag and all 16 of Germany’s regional legislatures.

Merkel was left scrambling to put together a governing alliance. The resulting “grand coalition” with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) looks neither grand nor of much substance.

CDU potentates began edging Merkel toward the door after last year’s election, but it was recent state elections in Bavaria and Hesse that greased the wheels.

In Bavaria in mid-October, Merkel’s sister party, the CSU, lost over 10 per cent of the vote it won in 2013, and its absolute majority.

The beneficiaries were not the left-of-centre SPD opposition, which lost even more than the CSU. In an example of voter disaffection with the traditional mainstream parties that is becoming evident all over Europe, Bavarian left-wingers opted for the Greens, while disenchanted right-wingers went for the AfD.

Something similar happened in the state elections in Hesse on Sunday. Merkel’s CDU dropped 11 percentage points from the 2013 election, and again the gains went to the AfD and the Greens.

Merkel has indicated she intends to remain as chancellor until the next general election in 2021. She will probably not have that option. She is now the lamest of lame ducks, and the likelihood is that when the CDU picks a new leader in December, that person will be slid into the chancellor’s office with relative speed.

There are three obvious candidates for the leadership. They are very different political characters, and which one the CDU chooses therefore has profound implications not just for Germany, but for the EU.

Merkel’s favourite appears to be Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the former chief minister (premier, in Canadian terms) of Saarland. AKK, as she is known, is strongly pro-EU, and her ideological base is pragmatic enough to have allowed her to form coalition governments with parties to her left and right.

However, the recent elections suggest the continuity of the Merkel years that AKK would represent is not what German voters want, and not what will enable the CDU to survive.

A spoiler in the race will be the almost certain candidacy of Friedrich Merz, whose political career was a victim of Merkel’s rise to power, and who has nursed a grudge ever since.

While in the wilderness, Merz has been the leading light of a pro-American association of business moguls. He remains a formidable political performer, but his support is mainly among the CDU’s veterans.

The man to watch is Merkel’s health minister, Jens Spahn. News reports in Germany say Spahn has told colleagues he will be a candidate for the CDU leadership and thus the chancellor’s office.

Spahn is a strong nationalist whose patriotism is streaked with xenophobia. He is a persistent critic of Merkel’s open-handed immigration policy, which he says has caused “disruption of the state.”

Spahn, a gay Catholic whose husband is a journalist, is opposed to Muslim immigrants, in particular. He has characterized them as “anti-gay, misogynistic and anti-Semitic.”

Spahn is the darling of the CDU’s right wing and is seen as the candidate who can block the continued rise of the AfD.

That may well be the case, but it could well involve the CDU adopting the harsh right-wing nationalism of the AfD. Spahn is a fan of Sebastian Kurz, the chancellor in Austria who has formed a governing alliance with his country’s version of the AfD, the Freedom Party.

It is hard to imagine a similar coalition in Germany between the AfD and Spahn as the CDU chancellor. The AfD is opposed to the EU and everything that the European alliance stands for, including NATO. But if the CDU becomes part of the slide into nationalism that is gathering pace, not only in Germany but across Europe, it will make little difference.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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Jonathan Manthorpe is the author of “Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan,” published by Palgrave-Macmillan. He has been a foreign correspondent and international affairs columnist for nearly 40 years. He was European bureau chief for the Toronto Star and then Southam News in the late 1970s and the 1980s. In 1989 he was appointed Africa correspondent by Southam News and in 1993 was posted to Hong Kong to cover Asia. For the last few years he has been based in Vancouver, writing international affairs columns for what is now the Postmedia Group. He left the group last year and now writes for a range of newspapers and websites. [email protected]